


Chiaroscuro

by scoradh



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1327822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoradh/pseuds/scoradh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is where the end starts.</p><p>Written in September 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: moshi (livejournal)

This is where it all starts.  
  
The clubhouse is a miasma of sweat, socks and wet towels. Momo is dancing around Ryoma, mostly dressed but with several buttons undone and his hair in a mess. Ryoma dresses slowly, methodically, neatening every fold as he goes along. He is always ready first.   
  
"Ne, Echizen, who is, then?" Momo playfully pummels Ryoma's shoulder. Ryoma looks long-suffering and about forty years old. "Who's the best-looking guy on the team?" Momo preens, obviously hoping Ryoma will say 'you,' and worrying that he will say 'Kaidoh.' As ever, Momo is about as subtle as an elephant with a head cold.  
  
"Che," says Ryoma, "Fuji," as if it were obvious.  
  
Momo looks dumbstruck. Syuusuke doesn't even turn his head. He's very good at not reacting. The first time an aunt said to his mother, "Isn't Syuu-chan growing up to be a lovely boy? Far nicer than Yuuta," with a chuckle that sounded like a fish being squeezed to death, Syuusuke kept his eyes closed out of shock. He pretended he hadn't heard. Yuuta had heard, and from that day on he loved Syuusuke a little less.  
  
So now, when Ryoma says this like it's the answer to a question only the stupidest person in the world would ask -- easily Momo, then -- Syuusuke remains tranquil as a monk's pond. He doesn't find it terribly difficult to nod along to Eiji's endless stream of conversation, like that's what he was doing all along. He smiles.   
  
Syuusuke is fifteen years old. He's never been in love before.  
  
...  
  
Syuusuke practises kissing on his arm. Either the skin on the underside of his elbow or his lips is very sensitive, because it feels tingly. But there's not much in the way of reciprocation, and sometimes Syuusuke's mouth aches for wanting to be crushed against someone else's. Anyone else's.  
  
...  
  
On Syuusuke's last day of middle school, Ryoma seeks him out. Out of his tennis clothes and hat, he looks like a negative -- all black and white. The people Syuusuke is having lunch with seem surprised at the interruption, but they don't say anything when Syuusuke leaves behind his bento and follows Ryoma out to the stairwell.  
  
"I want to come over to your house," states Ryoma baldly. He remembers too late to amend it to, "I mean, if you wouldn't mind, Fuji-senpai."  
  
"I don't mind." Syuusuke smiles and looks at him dead on. Ryoma stares back, his old-gold eyes swimming like coins in a fountain. "I'll meet you here after class, okay?"  
  
They walk to Syuusuke's house in silence: Syuusuke because he doesn't mind it, Ryoma because he doesn't say anything. Syuusuke wants to reach out and take Ryoma's hand, and once the thought appears he can't erase it. It makes the silence sharp-edged and brittle.  
  
Ryoma wanders around Syuusuke's bedroom, touching cacti and flipping through his bookshelf. Syuusuke sits on his bed, opening his mouth to speak several times and closing it again once he's mentally edited whatever he was going to say.  
  
Ryoma asks to see his photographs. Syuusuke guesses that Ryoma knows as much about photography as he does about auto mechanics. Does this mean he wants to see them just because Syuusuke took them? The idea confuses Syuusuke, but there's a sweetness to the confusion that suggests that he does know the answer hidden behind it.  
  
Syuusuke gets out his favourite album and Ryoma sits down beside him. Ryoma looks a little bored by the time they get to the third series of trees. Syuusuke reaches two fingers into the space between the pages and slides out a picture he cut from one of his sister's magazines.   
  
The man in the moody photograph is sultry, with a dark wing of hair and deep shadows etched across his naked body. Syuusuke holds his breath as he spreads it flat on top of 'Autumn #34.'   
  
He lets it out when Ryoma leans to rest his cheek against Syuusuke's shoulder and sighs. Ryoma puts his hand on the edge of the album: just beside Syuusuke's and with his fingertips touching the edge of the ripped page.  
  
They stay that way for a long time, until Ryoma's cousin calls his mobile and steals him home.  
  
...  
  
One day, Ryoma appears on his doorstep. He's fourteen now, with limbs swelling and stretching. Syuusuke's height, but not for much longer.  
  
He wants Syuusuke to fix his hair. "Make it like yours," he says. Syuusuke finds that it's disconcerting when he's crowded by someone whose lips are on the exact same -- perfect maybe -- level as his own.  
  
Syuusuke nods. Smiles. Takes Ryoma into the bathroom and makes him lean over the bath. Tucks a towel around Ryoma's shoulders. Maybe spends a little too long massaging the shampoo into Ryoma's hair and teasing out the sweat and knots and tangles -- but he's sixteen, and he wants to touch things.   
  
Syuusuke used to cut his brother's hair, back before Syuusuke took the place of the devil and the bogeyman both in Yuuta's arsenal of bad guys. He snips at Ryoma's hair with Yumiko's nail scissors (sharp enough to draw blood). He towels it dry and brushes it, for so long that Ryoma starts to melt back against him. His eyes flutter closed. Syuusuke's fingers find the ticklish parts around his ears and stroke, just a little bit.   
  
When he's done, Ryoma's hair glows. His cheeks and eyes match. He burns as bright as a chandelier, as a bouquet of stars. Syuusuke turns away, embarrassed by his thoughts.  
  
"Thanks," says Ryoma. Then he adds, "Fuji-senpai?" so Syuusuke has to look at him.  
  
His lips are puffy by nature and wet from being licked -- nerves or habit. They taste like nothing and everything, but Ryoma's mouth beats the hell out of Syuusuke's own elbow.  
  
...  
  
Yumiko takes them to Chiba: Yuuta and Mizuki, Syuusuke and Ryoma. Syuusuke forgets to be annoyed at Mizuki's presence, his five-minute lip-gloss checks, his preening in front of Yumiko. He even forgets to hate the way Yuuta's jealousy at Mizuki's attentions towards his blatantly female sister is so thick and black it could cloud out the sun. Syuusuke only has eyes for Ryoma. He wants to press his nose to Ryoma's and laugh with glee. He wants to fuck Ryoma against a dune. Ryoma is happily oblivious, scowling at the bikini-clad beach bunnies and eating ice cream.   
  
The sand is like sugar. Syuusuke makes a sandcastle, patting and shaping and making little funnels to let the water run in. Ryoma watches for a while. He doesn't ask to help, which makes Syuusuke's heart sing. Ryoma _knows_ he wouldn't want that.  
  
Eventually Ryoma's patience runs out and he tugs Syuusuke into the sea with him. Once he's sure no one is looking, Ryoma arches his eyebrows and dives beneath the waves. Syuusuke follows and they kiss underwater until the air runs out. They emerge spluttering. When Syuusuke laughs he breathes in a lungful of seawater, and Ryoma looks affronted. They do it over and over, bumping knees and churning up sand with their toes. By the time Yumiko calls them in Ryoma's mouth looks as if it's been stung by a jellyfish.   
  
They sit wrapped in the same gigantic towel. Mizuki babbles on about his father's company while Yuuta stews and Yumiko tries not to yawn. Ryoma shoves his elbow in Syuusuke's side like a kid; Syuusuke manages not to drag Ryoma's hand down between his legs. They sneak another kiss when the others are changing out of their bathing gear. Yuuta's brow is even darker on the way home, and Syuusuke thinks he might have seen.  
  
Syuusuke can't blame his brother for being jealous this time. Ryoma's kisses are hot and wanton. Syuusuke doubts his brother has got to first base with Mizuki, or even realised that he wants to yet.   
  
It's the first time in his life that Syuusuke has felt good about winning.  
  
...  
  
Ryoma stays the night at Syuusuke's house on his fifteenth birthday. He claims he can't bear to be around his father at the moment. Now that Ryoma is fifteen he's even closer to being a man than before. Nanjiroh associates this with increased doses of pornography. Syuusuke is pretty sure that Ryoma doesn't object to the pornography itself, only the subject matter.  
  
They stare at each other across the white expanse of a pillow. Despite the uncountable times he's made out with Syuusuke on this very bed, Ryoma seems too shy to make a move now that he's in it. The moonlight spilling in through the curtains turns Ryoma's skin lambent, his hair into black silk. Syuusuke wants to touch him very badly indeed -- wants to rip off his clothes, spread him out beneath him, break him open -- but he doesn't know how to say it.  
  
"Fuji-senpai," breathes Ryoma. Then he corrects himself. "Syuusuke-kun." That's when Syuusuke knows he's allowed.   
  
They both move at the same time, rolling into the little dip in the mattress. Syuusuke reaches for Ryoma, feels him sink into his arms. Their cloth-covered erections brush, wringing a moan from Ryoma. Syuusuke's hands clench, catching up folds of material and skin. They rock together, awkwardly at first, then faster and faster. At the last minute Ryoma tries to wrench away, but Syuusuke's hands on his back prevent him. He comes with a shudder and tears on Syuusuke's neck.  
  
"It's all right," soothes Syuusuke, and when Ryoma's calm he pulls down his pyjama pants a little and they do it again.  
  
...  
  
This is where it ends.  
  
"I love you," pants Syuusuke. He's close, so close, and Ryoma is achingly, burningly tight. He doesn't notice Ryoma's grimace or the way he turns his head away.   
  
The next day he doesn't answer his phone. By the end of the week Syuusuke finds out from Momo that he's changed his number. Syuusuke's emails bounce. Ryoma's cousin is always cool but polite when she answers the door. No, Ryoma isn't here right now. No, she can't say when he'll be back. Yes, of course she will pass on a message.  
  
Yumiko changes his sheets after a month. Syuusuke screams at her, the first time he's ever raised his voice to his sister. He rips them out of the washing machine but it's too late: the suds have obscured all the last traces of Ryoma. They also spill all over the floor. Syuusuke has his allowance stopped until the new machine is paid for.  
  
He doesn't know what hurts worse: the fact that he told Ryoma that he loved him, or that he still does.  
  
It's late autumn in the park. Syuusuke snaps the shutter of his camera, but every angle is wrong and the colours blur like tearstains. He drops out of the tennis team and forgets to hand in assignments. He has several sessions with the school counsellor, who reports with confusion that Fuji-kun seems perfectly fine.  
  
It continues for months, until the day Syuusuke finds a photograph shoved into his locker. It's a very bad snapshot of a cat, who would be a photogenic subject were its head not half out of the frame.   
  
The world starts turning again, a little differently than before. Syuusuke breathes in, breathes out, and light and shade begin to creep back into the world.  
  
A familiar hand has scribbled two words on to the back of the picture.  
  
 _Me too._


End file.
